The ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Show Was Once Supposed To Not Only Be A Movie But A Movie TRILOGY (Then ‘Solo’ Underperformed)

Obi-Wan Kenobi ended its six-episode run last week, allowing Star Wars heads to catch up with an old pal well into middle age and see some other famous faces as well. It was the franchise’s third-ever show, though earlier reports revealed it was originally supposed to be a big screen romp, not a small screen one. But now we’re learning there was, at least originally, not supposed to be just one.

In a new interview with Direct, Stuart Beattie, who wrote the script that the show was based on — and who received a writing credit on four of the episodes — reveals he had more where that came from. Indeed, he claims he pitched Lucasfilm and star Ewan McGregor a “full trilogy” connecting Obi-Wan up to at least around the events of the original 1977 Star Wars. Alas, then Solo: A Star Wars Story came out and underperformed, at which point, he says, the decision was made not to make any more spin-off films.”

But when there was, Beattie took his shot. “So when I pitched my Obi-Wan story to Lucasfilm, I said, ‘There’s actually three stories here. Because there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make in order to go from Obi-Wan to Ben,’” Beattie explained.

The first stage was what you saw in Obi-Wan Kenobi. But the second was much more introspective and heavy. It was about, Beattie says, “thinking about where Kenobi ends up,” namely the part where he sacrifices himself on the Death Star during a duel with Darth Vader (spoiler).

“Great moment, you know, makes you cry. But, if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty sudden thing, to just kind of go be fighting a guy, to see Luke and go, ‘I’m gonna die,’” Beattie explained. “You know, that to me, that required forethought. That required pre-acceptance that this was going to happen.”

And so the second film would be about Obi-Wan coming “to terms with our own mortality.” Beattie was a little fuzzy on how that would have happened, saying it ight have been “somehow in a prophecy, or Qui-Gon [Liam Neeson’s Jedi master] telling him, ‘There’s going to come a moment where you’re gonna have to sacrifice yourself for the good.’” By the end of the second film, Beattie says, Obi Wan would have “accepted the idea that he’s going to die, and that he’s going to die willingly at a crucial moment, and you will know when that moment presents itself.”

Beattie didn’t discuss the third part, but perhaps he didn’t get that far. After all, he says he was busy working on the script for the first film when Solo came out, which then put the kibosh on three expensive big screen Obi-Wan movies. (Though he says, “I like Solo, personally.”) But at the time, he says, everyone was very into this being a new film trilogy.

In the meantime, you can watch the six-episode show Beattie’s script became on Disney+. And you can wait and see if that Taika Waititi Star Wars film actually comes out this year as teased.